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Writer and editor Home > Blogs > Brain Droppings > Archives > 2008 > June > 01 > Entry
Hats off to the DPO!
It’s rare that an organization gets to celebrate 75 years of existence, but the Dayton Philharmonic did just that in grand style Sunday evening at the Dayton Art Institute, where it got its start on this very date in 1933.
As maestro Neal Gittleman put it, founding director Paul Katz didn’t let the fact that the nation was in a Depression stop him from deciding that “Damn it, his city needed an orchestra.” His vision and leadership got the group going, and over the course of the next seven-plus decades, the DPO has grown and flourished and just gotten better and better.
The concert was preceded by a champagne reception at the museum, and the show in the NCR Renaissance Auditorium at the DAI was more or less structured after the DPO’s inaugural concert. It was a brisk, 60-minute lively mixed program of popular classical favorites, from Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” to Strauss’ “Blue Danube” waltz. The orchestra, under Gittleman’s baton, did its usual fine work — and it was interesting to see and hear the smaller, scaled-down group on a stage much smaller than what we’re used to seeing today.
But it was also a good way to see how much things have changed since 1933, and how much so for the better.
When the audience stood for an extended standing ovation at the end of it all, you got the sense that the applause was, deservedly, for the excellent musicians on the stage that night — but also for the spirits of all those who had come before, and upon whose shoulders these fine players stood. Think of it: 75 years.
Congrats to the DPO, and also to the community that it has served, which has supported it so generously in return for so long.
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